Woodland Madia

I like the name of this little yellow aster.  Anisocarpus madioides (formerly Madia madioidies) can be found in wooded places in the early summer all along the west coast.  This photo was from the same day as the mariposa lily (June 14), but I still see them blooming, so this post isn't entirely out of date.  I was lucky enough to come across a very lazy bee hanging out on this bloom.  Hardly moved an antenna as a photographed it.

Coltsfoot

This is arctic sweet coltsfoot, or western coltsfoot - Petasites frigidus var. palmatus a farily widespread species in the sunflower family (Asteraceae). These were growing by the same creek from the last entry, alongside the lone cow parsnip. The two species work well together for this purpose since they're superficially similar, but quite different. Though the coltsfoot flower head is umbel-shaped like the cow parsnip, it's technically a raceme. More-over, its flowers are a world apart, as the plant is in the Asteraceae family. So each "flower" is actually an inflorescence in itself - a composite made of teeny tiny flowers, in this case both "ray flowers" and "disk flowers" just like a sunflower or daisy. And when its seeds become mature, they'll blow away in the wind.

This one hasn't opened yet. I love the purplish color of the involucre (the bracts, or phyllaries, enclosing the inflorescence).

Up close, you can see the disk flowers in the center and ray flowers (they look like petals) on the outside. One of these days I'll get a macro lens...the Canon EOS 50D kit lens (28-135mm IS) isn't too hot in the macro department, unfortunately.

Like the cow parsnip, coltsfoot are insect-pollinated, and their flat-toped flower heads make a nice platform for the insects that come to collect nectar.

Today's photos are the rest of the March 1st batch. A little assortment of common woodsy flowers.

Douglas Iris (Iris douglasiana): gorgeous, quite common. Listed as a native noxious weed! You see them in grassy fields as well as in the woods, in openings and on roadsides. They reproduce via rhizomes, so you may find them in dense patches. This was a loner, and it's neighbor appears to have been eaten, presumably by a deer.

And the not-so-violet stream violet (Viola glabella). Violets are edible and a good source of vitamin C.

And finally, a pretty composite, Petasites palmatus - Western Coltsfoot.

I read that you can eat the leaves cooked like spinach - but not too much because they're high in pyrolizidine alkaloids, which are toxic to the liver. The concentration is lowest in the leaves. The Wikipedia article also sites a study that found that extracts of petasin and/or isopetasin, a substance in the roots, relieves migraines. A related plant is the introduced European medicinal plant Tussilago farfara, also known as known as coltsfoot, used as a cough suppressant. T. Farfara looks different and it doesn't grow here.